Cynic - Carbon-Based Anatomy

November 28, 2011

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I spoke with Paul Masvidal–guitarist, singer, and a founding member of Cynic–backstage in New York City a few days ago as of this writing. As I was packing up after the interview, we talked briefly about “pick-me-up” albums. Everyone has one or two: my father’s is Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA, my mother’s is Fleetwood Mac’s 1997 live record The Dance. Cynic’s Traced in Air is my pick-me-up album. True story: once, when I was out of medication, I listened to TiA in the midst of a sudden-onset fever. At the end of “Nunc Stans”, my thermometer read 97 degrees.

Given that, I asked Paul Masvidal what he listens to when he feels down. After a brief moment of reflection, he answered with a hint of a smile in a measured tone: “I really like Elliot Smith. He really digs in”. That piece of information unpacked Carbon-Based Anatomy, the 2011 EP: more than Re-Traced, this is Cynic’s singer-songwriter record.

Carbon-Based Anatomy continues the style of Traced in Air, but functions directly opposite to its predecessor. Traced in Air works as a guideline for escaping oneself, beginning inside a human speaker on “The Space for This” and then projected outward through time, space, science, and religion. “Carbon-Based Anatomy” begins on the outside, with Masvidal in his synthesized alien voice looking inside: “Homo Sapiens, and your Carbon-Based Anatomy…” Before Cynic beams the listener back up for a second round, the background drops away until there is only an unmodified Masvidal with a clean guitar tone. “Drop the math / Drop the storyline, just for a moment / Calm the mind / The longing never ends, not while you’re human”.

Carbon-Based Anatomy does not drop the math completely (Masvidal, drummer Sean Reinert, and bassist Sean Malone are too talented to dumb the music down), but it abandons almost every stylistic remnant from Focus—the growls have been dropped entirely, the processed vocals have been minimized, synthesizers have been relegated to texture-creators while the tempo has been reigned in.

Progressive metal leans toward excess; pomposity undermines all but the finest records of this sort. Carbon-Based Anatomy has none of that dead weight—even its intro, outro, and ‘filler’ track are essential to the EP’s flow. It feels compact—small without weakness. What Masvidal has learned (presumably from Elliot Smith and his peers) is to temper his music with intimacy.

Case in point: second track proper, “Box Up My Bones”. Complete with uplifting sing-along chorus and a torrent of ‘whoahs’, the song becomes saccharine. This attitude may alienate a huge segment of metaldom (even more so than a song about elves), but it affords Masvidal and company an expanded palate of emotions to play with. Yet, at the same time, it feels like Cynic is playing directly to you-yes-you, instead of some undefined would-be listener.

— Joseph Schafer

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HEAR CARBON-BASED ANATOMY

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